This whole process was actually really difficult and took a full two days, because this cube is just too tall. The little drone doesn't fly very fast, and its Energy has to be constantly topped up, so it could only keep flying upward in fits and starts. Luckily the cats had stuffed themselves silly beforehand and stored up plenty of Energy, so they finally held out until the little drone reached the top.
And sure enough, there were a lot of Pteranodons up here whose Reactors had gone out, so they hadn't been able to go out hunting. For some reason, there was no mycelium on the walls; there was some on the roof, but clearly this mycelium hadn't found any food among the mechanical Pteranodons. It didn't look nearly as vicious as the stuff on the ground.
The little drone found the Pteranodon closest to the cats' side and, using the same method as before, briefly reactivated its Ark Reactor. The Pteranodon flapped its wings once and dropped straight off the top of the cube, even gliding for a short stretch. Unfortunately it fell in the wrong spot and couldn't serve as another island.
Then he picked another one and kept using that short activation window to shove the Pteranodons downward. After trying two or three in a row, he finally got one in a decent position. The cats rolled and scrambled their way onto this one, and now they were very close to the cube.
Then another one fell in a pretty good spot, and this time the cats finally stepped onto the wall of the cube. But things weren't that simple; first they had to find an entrance.
The cube's walls had protruding sections, just right for the cats to walk on. So they started exploring along the outer wall, trying to see if there was any door, but they walked for ages without finding anything.
Peter was the first to stop and said, "I don't think this thing even has a door. After all, its only channel of communication with the outside world is that flock of Pteranodons. Even if there's a passage leading inside, it's definitely on the roof. There's no need to design entrances and exits along the sides."
Shiller thought about it and felt Peter had a point. They were still thinking about this cube with a Human race architectural mindset, assuming it should have doors and windows, or at least some kind of entrance. But in reality, Iron Man didn't build this thing as a building at all; he built it more like a hard drive. Aside from the interface with the computer, who would design an ant entrance on a hard drive?
But climbing up there wasn't realistic either. The little drone had to fly for two full days to reach the top, which shows just how tall this thing is. And circling it once to look for a door was out of the question; its length and width are both much greater than its height, so it looks more like a shoebox set on the ground. The perimeter is ridiculous—no cat could walk all the way around it.
For the moment, things reached a stalemate: none of them had any way to deal with this cube. But Shiller thought for a bit and said, "Since the red fungi have leaked out, that means there might be damaged sections on the wall. Maybe we can observe the mycelium's pathways."
He was really saying this for Peter's benefit, because only Peter knew how to observe this. Peter thought for a moment and said, "We know this weird fungi doesn't eat inorganic matter, so they couldn't have broken through the wall on their own. And since the Pteranodons drag those creatures inside and those creatures can't get out, wild animals breaking the wall from the outside is also pretty unlikely."
"Which means something may have gone wrong inside, or there was some kind of accident that damaged the wall and let the fungi leak out. And that problem is very likely related to the collective shutdown of the Ark Reactors. The Ark Reactors were probably driven offline by abnormal elemental decay. The thing most likely to interfere with an Ark Reactor is high‑Energy radiation."
The other cats all froze for a moment. Even without much understanding of science or engineering, they still knew how dangerous radiation was, let alone high‑Energy radiation. In American Comics, quite a few Superheroes and villains mutate because of high‑Energy radiation.
If there's a radiation leak inside this cube, then they should already be in the middle of that radiation right now. Granted, worrying about radiation in a Cthulhu Universe sounds a bit like needless anxiety, but the cats still felt a jolt of tension and just hoped they wouldn't grow tentacles later.
But Shiller quickly realized something was off. He said, "The ecological extinction here has been going on for some time, but the Ark Reactors only shut down a few days ago. The timeline doesn't match, does it?"
Peter shook his head and said, "The Pteranodons ramped up their hunting frequency, most likely to support the spreading fungi. Or rather, they kept catching those Big guy prey specifically to provide food for the fungi."
"They're following a dead‑set order and can't judge on their own whether the spread of the fungi has exceeded expectations. They only know the demand for food keeps increasing, so they have to speed up their hunting. That also accelerates the Ark Reactors' operating frequency."
"High‑Energy radiation causes elemental decay that weakens the Ark Reactors' efficiency, but the Pteranodons' frequent hunting requires higher efficiency for support. Put the two together, and the Ark Reactors were probably running in an overclocked state the whole time, so it's not surprising they broke down. Given the limited conditions, these things weren't all that reliable to begin with."
"Every hunting run by the Pteranodons uses the same squad. The group we ran into was very likely the last batch that could still operate; the others had already stopped moving. So the Ark Reactors didn't just fail recently—they've been gradually breaking down ever since the mycelium started leaking. We just happened to catch the very last ones failing, which is why there's this apparent gap in time."
Shiller nodded; he felt Peter's reasoning made sense. This also explained why the Pteranodons only caught prey with large Body Type. They'd already studied this: 'large Body Type' basically just means more meat; there's nothing else in common. If these were for experimental material or beast fighting, that wouldn't work. But if it's feed, then it's perfectly logical—the more meat you bring back in one go, the better.
An unknown accident caused the leak; the leak caused overclocking; overclocking caused damage. Fortunately, the mycelium that was originally supposed to be fed by the Pteranodons has now learned to hunt on its own outside and probably doesn't need feeding anymore.
Which leaves only one major question: why does Iron Man raise mycelium in here?
Peter seemed to have some ideas. He said, "It's precisely because of this time lag that if, after the mycelium ran out, there was still a squad of Pteranodons going out to hunt and feed them, then the mycelium inside the structure should be stronger than the stuff outside. After all, the prey the Pteranodons bring back has a lot of meat and is easy to consume, whereas the mycelium out here has to Split and expand while hunting for itself. Its growth efficiency can't match being fed, just like domestic pigs compared to wild boars."
"So as long as we head toward where the mycelium is denser and stronger, we should be able to find the point where it leaked out." Peter stood above and looked down, quickly identified a direction, flicked his tail, turned around, and said, "This way."
On the way, Shiller asked him about the function of this cube and the role of this strange fungi. Peter only shook his head and, in a voice full of implication, said, "Many people think Mr. Stark is flamboyant, that he wants the whole world to know how smart and powerful he is. But only those close to him know that what he shows is not even one ten‑thousandth of what he really has."
"Tony Stark is not just unassuming; he's extremely restrained. He has never put certain incredibly brilliant but utterly insane ideas into practice. If he ever did, the entire cosmos would be changed by it."